I write these words alone on a beautiful, warm sunny day. Despite being alone I feel a tremendous inner peace and joy. It is really OK to be in touch with my aloneness. It is OK to be aware of my individuality and uniqueness. I approve of myself. I am an OK person. By accepting my aloneness, I accept myself. I feel a delicious sense of harmony between myself and this magical environment. No one can take that peace away from me. In the final analysis it is always available.
I used to be very self-conscious of going places alone: the movies, a restaurant, to church. It was so uncomfortable. I felt like an ogre who nobody wanted to be around. I was ashamed and felt humiliated. As time passed, it grew worse and worse and I quit going places. I stayed home or worse yet, went to bars where everyone was alone. But I didn’t figure that out for many years and thought the people in the bars were my friends, especially the bar-tenders.
As I’ve grown accustomed to going places alone, I now have to keep myself from saying to the maître’s “Me, Santa Claus, and the Easter Bunny…the Tooth Fairy will join us later”.
I’m still learning the power that comes from aloneness. The pull of social interaction had become to me a tool for my disease, alcoholism, to distract me from my need to abstain from drinking. As I further work to handle my triggers and my addiction, I realize that my aloneness is actually very peaceful and affords me an opportunity: one to grow or one to shirk back to my addiction.
Growing requires a right choice: a choice to either find a way to socialize with the right people, a church group, a meeting. Something besides running to a bar and drown my loneliness in alcohol. If I choose to feed my addiction I am killing myself. If I choose something else, I am growing. It is up to me to choose.